starfish lips is a bossa nova-infused indie-pop song at the intersection of melancholy and cute… Written in elementary Korean, it is about learning how to communicate across languages, but also across the subtle sign-language of gestures and inflections.

Originally written in 2000 and with this version recorded over 15 years later, the song has special significance as a marker for my recent move to Korea: Without the fluency of one’s native tongue, what should be easy and every day can become like assembling building blocks that don’t quite fit: misunderstanding a simple joke, finding directions to a destination in plain sight, attempting to describe a subtle color only through elemental tones…

In this way, starfish lips is also about the impossibility of language: ‘Like English to a fish’ there is an unbridgeable gap between me… and you. But is it possible that teaching is also a form of learning how to bridge this gap?